"Parallel Systems" 'Word Challenge Game' ... and programming challenge

[GratedTopping]

Here's an oldie I found on an equally-old disk. I think it's pretty rare. Has anybody else ever seen this before? Have you heard of programs from this company or know where other software from them is?

*****

Word-challenge Game:

In this 1983 release from "Parallel Systems, Inc.", you have to guess the computer's secret word (or word chosen from a list of ones you entered).

I'm not sure of the store I was in, but I somehow remember that I chose this game from the ones available even though there surely were games that had some action. Nobody wanted me to
specifically get an 'educational' type of program, so it was what sounded appealing to me. I was curious and I actually did like it.

PROGRAMMING INFO: Transferring it for use with the "Classic99" TI emulator, I was surprised to see that it wouldn't run in BASIC. It locked-up the TI with a multi-colour pattern. It was obviously a standard BASIC program (since it used character set 16, for example, which Extended BASIC can't without special coding)...so why would it have lines that were greater than the four line-length limit (which Extended BASIC can handle, but not standard
BASIC)? I was confused at first, but I realized that I must have tried to lengthen PRINT statements back in the day --- which was the extent of my attempt to adapt it to Extended BASIC. It was RESequenced by increments of 1, which is what I always liked. I must have really known little about XB when I got this game. If it was later, I would have combined lines in XB, used the CALL CHAR statement to redefine up to four characters at a time, and used a routine that would have allowed me to use character sets 15 & 16 in XB.

Anyway, I loaded the program in "Classic99" BASIC, 'pasting' program lines and only portions of the super-long PRINT lines. Then, I RESequenced the program to give me more space for
inclusion of new lines to complete the long PRINT statements, RESequenced by ones (RES 1,1), and saved the game.

NOTE: To try this, you will need to use the CALL FILES procedure...

- CALL FILES(0) <ENTER>
- NEW <ENTER>
- OLD DSK1.WC-GAME <ENTER>

That frees-up some memory; without doing it, you'll get a memory-full error. Don't forget: that's *ZERO* in the CALL FILES. This is a memory-hog and using the normal CALL FILES(1) wasn't enough. There was an out-of-memory error a little after the rules were displayed.

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In addition to the WORD CHALLENGE...here's a little PROGRAMMING CHALLENGE for others. It's something I can't seem to figure out and maybe others can.

At the area where you select the level, the screen would look better if it was scrolled-up a couple lines. However, no PRINT statements or additions of ":" at end of the displays' final PRINT statement has any effect. It might have a simple solution, but I am confused.

Line 85 is the one I was trying to add more ":" to. Also, when it was resequenced differently, I tried to add a single PRINT in a new line and it had no effect. Any ideas on why the screen wouldn't scroll?

WC-GAME.zip

Edited September 5, 2013 by GratedTopping

[Tursi]

"Paste XB" is meant for Extended BASIC, but it should work in TI BASIC too, and may help with pasting long lines in the future (it strips unneeded spaces, although TI BASIC would have very few, and extends the input buffer. This latter appears to work - I just retested it.)

 

Of course, in general CALL FILES(0) will not work on a real machine with disk, it's Classic99 specific, since Classic99 doesn't actually need any VRAM for the disk system. It's the same memory layout as a cassette system though.

[GratedTopping]

I guess I never knew fully until today that CALL FILES(0) wouldn't work on a regular TI.

 

The game was cassette only as far as I know and I suppose it was meant for just a really bare-bones system (the TI and cassette player).

[sometimes99er]

Very nice.

I'm not sure of the store I was in, but I somehow remember that I chose this game from the ones available even though there surely were games that had some action.

If you still got the original package, could we have some pictures ?

[GratedTopping]

I think I may have the cassette only somewhere, but it might have been one of the programs where, once I backed it up to disk, I felt I didn't need the tape any longer. Of course, that's not really a backup if you only have the copy -- but I was a 9 year old kid and didn't know.

 

I know I have some original tapes, though, including NOT POLYOPTICS "Ant Wars" (I really like that game) and something called B1 NUCLEAR BOMBER in the too-large box.

 

I'll look around...

 

* Does anybody have any ideas about the PRINT 'problem' I mentioned?